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Comment by depressedpanda | Hacker News Reader

Conversely, I don't even have a bachelor's degree in CS, and I haven't suffered at all because of it. I got a job offer before graduating, and decided my time was better spent earning money than learning stuff I would probably never have any use for.

Rather than focusing on degrees, I think it's a lot more important to focus on learning, however you don't know what's important to learn until you actually start working on real problems.

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Funny how those of us who didn't spend more than a couple years in school think the rest of the years are probably a waste, and those that did spend a lot of time and money in school think it was useful.

I have a BS in computer science. I felt like less than 25% of it actually made me a better programmer. At least 25% of it was a total waste of time. The rest was stuff that was maybe academically relevant or interesting to me at least, but of dubious value given the time and financial costs.

I have a degree. It will go down as the biggest regret of my life and my life has changed drastically simply because I thought getting an education was good for society.

Who got more accurate information in that case.. ;)

It might be because education is free in my country, but I loved my Uni years and am glad I got 5 of them no matter the use for my career.

I spent 6 years in undergrad (3 for MechE, 3 for Econ). I think it was a waste in terms of my career (which is SWE). I enjoyed college from a social perspective, but there were way cooler things I could've done with $15,000/yr

I had a BA in business and wanted to get into tech field (no idea what, at the time). Decided to get MS in Information Science. That helped me get an internship which enabled me to add some tech-related experience to my resume which was a jumping off point that launched my tech career. My feeling about getting a MS at this point is that it was gatekeeping. I could have done that job pre-masters and everything I've learned about programming has been on-the-job training or self-directed.

I spent the first ten years of my programming career without a degree, like you. I got a SoftEng MSc at 30. It was worth it. Sometimes we just don't know what we don't know.

I think formal cs education would make me a better engineer than I am now, but at the same time I have never seen an instance where education has mattered more than intelligence.

What made it worth it to you?

> learning stuff I would probably never have any use for.

I hear this so much, and I used to be one of the people saying it. Until I actually 1) learned that stuff and 2) realized I don't want to just write glue code. I like writing compilers. I like writing efficient data structures. I use my CS education a lot.

Instead those around you, with a degree, suffered. Having to deal with bricklayers that reinvent the wheel simply because they cant grasp cs topics is annoying.

In my experience, a degree doesn't matter much whether someone is able to 'grasp cs topics'; a willingness to learn on the job is vastly more important.

If others suffered because of me, it would be because I was once a junior developer with no practical experience -- which applies to everyone, regardless of whether they have a degree or not.

I wonder if you realize how bigoted and insulting your generalization is.

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